Composite Structures 93 (2011) 2504–2510

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Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Numerical modeling of the geometrical defects of an origami-like sandwich core

E. Baranger a,⇑, P.-A. Guidault a, C. Cluzel a,b
a
LMT-Cachan (ENS Cachan/CNRS/UPMC/ PRES UniverSud Paris), 61 av. du Président Wilson, F-94230 Cachan, France
b
IUT-SGM Evry rue du Père Jarlan, F-91025 Evry Cedex, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Folded cores have recently been developed for sandwich applications. The numerical determination of
Available online 15 April 2011 the out-of-plane properties of these cores requires the resolution of a stability problem. Therefore, the
sensitivity of these structures to geometrical defects has to be investigated. Since the ultimate objective
Keywords: is to optimize the geometry of the folded cores, the defects must be defined from the folding process
Sandwich itself. This paper focuses on the numerical modeling of consistent geometrical defects based on a simu-
Defect lation of the folding process. The defects thus generated greatly influence the out-of-plane stiffness of the
Modeling
core because the folded edges do not remain straight. The numerical results agree well with defects
Finite element analysis (FEA)
Folding
observed on an actual core as well as with the global out-of-plane response.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The work presented in this paper is part of the European project
CELPACT (CELlular materials for imPACT performances [1]) whose
objective is to develop new cores for sandwich panels. These cores
must be capable of carrying the load of a primary airplane struc-
ture as well as resisting impact from rubber projectiles, birds and
hail [2]. One of the cores being studied has an origami-like geom-
etry obtained by folding a paper sheet (a mat of aramid fibers in a
phenolic matrix) [3,4]. An example is shown in Fig. 1.
Contrary to honeycomb cores (made of Nomex, for example),
folded cores are ventilable and can be produced through a continu-
ous process [5,6]. In order to give the aircraft industry the necessary
tools for choosing among different technologies based on classical
sandwich performance criteria (specific stiffness, strength, energy
absorption and manufacturing cost), a complete set of studies
was undertaken. These studies include experimental observations,
modeling, the development of numerical strategies, validation tests
and a road map for applications. The main observations concerning
a folded aramid paper core resulting from these studies were pre-
sented in [7]. The objective of the present publication is to analyze
geometrical defects which are specific to folded cores and their con-
sequences on buckling. The influence of the nonlinear behavior of
the aramid paper will not be addressed.
Sandwich structures are made of a core inserted between two
skins in order to increase the inertia of the resulting section with
no significant increase in mass, thus giving the panel high specific
bending stiffness. The core must be capable of transferring shear
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: baranger@lmt.ens-cachan.fr (E. Baranger).
between the two skins and must resist out-of-plane compression.
This compression requirement is important in case of an impact
on the sandwich panel. Indeed, if the core gets crushed, the panel
loses bending stiffness. The sandwich panel is also often used as
a shield. In this case, it must fulfill energy absorption requirements.
The numerical optimization of the geometry of the folded core
requires the numerical simulation of the crushing test. Such a sim-
ulation includes a stability problem involving both local and global
buckling. Therefore, the existence of geometrical defects may play
a major role in the response of the structure [8].
Extensive work has already been published on the behavior of
honeycomb cores using both experimental and numerical ap-
proaches. These works focus mainly on three points: elastic
properties, failure criteria and energy absorption. Most of these
works couple experimental and modeling aspects. For example,
in [9], an analytical study of the out-of-plane crushing and shear-
ing of a unit cell was compared to experimental results. Two failure
criteria were proposed: buckling of the cell and failure of the cell
walls. In [10,11], in-plane biaxial crushing of a core was studied
experimentally and compared to finite element analyzes. The re-
sults showed good correlation between simulations and experi-
ments in terms of global stress/displacement curves. More
recently [12] used periodic homogenization to derive the elastic
properties of honeycombs and define a failure criterion based on
a linear buckling analysis. A physical interpretation of the crushing
of honeycomb cores was proposed in [13] along with a macro-
scopic model of the core.
The literature on folded cores is much less abundant. The man-
ufacturing process was described in [3,4]. A wide range of experi-
mental results were presented in [14,15]. Out-of-plane
compression, shearing and combinations of both types of loading

0263-8223/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2011.04.011
 E. Baranger et al. / Composite Structures 93 (2011) 2504–2510
Fig. 1. A folded core.
were studied on the core’s scale. The properties of paper were also
partially identified in [15–18]. Numerical models were developed,
mainly using explicit codes, in order to study post-buckling [19,20]
and simulate different loading cases, such as compression, shearing
or impact.
Concerning the sensitivity to imperfections in buckling analysis,
works were initiated by Koiter [21]. For details, the reader may
refer to [8,22]. In the case of asymmetrical bifurcation, imperfec-
tions constitute an important characteristic of the model which
leads to the selection of a branch of the solution tree. This branch
must correspond to the experimental solution. According to [23],
imperfections can be classified into:
 geometrical imperfections: shape defects (such as imperfect
flatness or cylindricality), thickness variability;
 material imperfections: variability of the material properties;
 initial imperfections: prestress, prestrain;
 loading imperfections: geometrical load misalignment, load
eccentricity, small perturbing loads.
Different techniques can be used to model defects. Some of
these techniques can take into account experimental data if avail-
able. The geometrical imperfections can be generated by perform-
ing random sampling at each point of the structure or by using
global modes. In the latter case, the modes can be based on linear
buckling analysis or on a Karhunen–Loeve expansion [24]. The
choice of the dominant modes is crucial, but can be difficult to val-
idate given the available experimental data.
This paper focuses on the modeling of geometrical defects in
folded cores. One should note that during the manufacturing pro-
cess the edges of folded cores are subjected to more constraints
than those of honeycomb cores. This is due to the sequential tasks
of folding and bonding which are involved in the making of honey-
combs. A small number of works concerning that topic can be
Fig. 2. Initial configuration of a paper fold with different initial geometrical defects.
2505
found in the literature. Since the ultimate goal is numerical optimi-
zation, the defects cannot be based simply on the direct observa-
tion of actual defects, but must be generated for a range of
different folding patterns. The relevance of these generated defects
obviously comes into question. The method we propose differs
from standard procedures, such as node shaking, in that it relies
on the modeling of the folding process in order to produce physical
defects. The importance of the out-of-straightness defect of the
edges will be emphasized and comparisons with experimental data
will be presented.
The paper is divided into three parts. The first part presents a
preliminary study of the sensitivity of a single folded edge to
imperfections. The second part is dedicated to the modeling of
the imperfect folded cores. The third part presents comparisons
between simulated defects and actual geometrical measurements.
2. Preliminary study
For the sake of simplicity, let us first consider the basic study of
a simple folded structure consisting of two paper sheets connected
along one of their edges by a perfect hinge and folded at a 60° ini-
tial angle. The bottom edge is clamped and a pure vertical displace-
ment is prescribed along the upper edge. Both the right and left
edges are free. Several different defects were generated using the
first two buckling modes of the paper sheets (Fig. 2). From left to
right: interior–interior deflection, exterior–exterior deflection and
interior–exterior deflection. In addition (the rightmost case of
Fig. 2), a configuration with a kinked edge was introduced, which
is similar in principle to that observed on the folded core and pre-
sented in [25]. For the first three configurations, the folded edge
was straight.
These geometrical imperfections can greatly affect the global
response of the structure, as can be seen in the plots of the load
as a function of the vertical displacement shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 4
shows the deformed shapes at the ultimate load. One can see that
the different imperfections lead to very different collapse modes.
Both the effective initial stiffnesses and the peak loads are differ-
ent. In fact, as the load increases, the planes which are locally tan-
gent to the two faces near the middle of the edge tend to coincide.
When this happens, the folded edge loses its stiffness and this
leads to a new fold in the structure. One should note that even
though the interior–exterior configuration and the kinked-edged
configuration lead to similar deformed shapes the influence of
the latter on the stiffness is greater due to the out-of-straightness
of the folded edge. This is reflected in the nonlinearity of the force/
displacement curve.
These imperfections must be modeled because they initiate the
degradation scenario (diffuse damage, creation of new folds, tear-
ing of the edges, . . .) and, therefore, greatly influence the global
and local responses of the geometrically nonlinear structure.
Therefore, two main issues need to be addressed. The first issue
2506 E. Baranger et al. / Composite Structures 93 (2011) 2504–2510

200

180

160

140

force (N) 120

100

80
int−int (1)
60
ext−ext (2)
40 int−ext (3)
kinked edge (4)
20

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
displacement (mm)

Fig. 3. The global force/displacement curves corresponding to the different initial defects (Fig. 2).

Fig. 4. The final configurations of the paper fold corresponding to the different initial defects (Fig. 2).

concerns the shape of the defect (which was the focus of the pre-
vious study) and the second issue concerns the magnitude of the
defects.
3. Numerical modeling of the folding process with geometrical
imperfections
The top view of a folded core (Fig. 5) shows that the actual loca-
tion of the folds does not correspond to the ideal nominal pattern.
In a 20 mm-thick core, a deviation of about 2 mm can be observed.
Fig. 5. Top view of a folded core sample (CELPACT Pattern 31). The white dashed
lines represent the nominal pattern.
Buckling of the cell walls at the free edges of the core sample are
also visible.
In the case of crushing, the modeling of the geometrical nonlin-
earities is necessary and sufficient to describe the behavior of the
core almost up to the peak global load. Contrary to material nonlin-
earities, whose effect is negligible because the strains are relatively
small, the geometrical nonlinearities are crucial in predicting the
paper degradation scenario around and beyond the peak load. Only
geometrical nonlinearities and defects will be considered in the
remainder of this study.
There are two possible approaches to the modeling of geomet-
rical imperfections: one based on experimental data and the other
based on numerical or mechanical considerations. The first
approach consists in modeling the geometry according to experi-
mental observations, or even a geometric scan of an actual manu-
factured core [26,20]. This approach leads to good results, but is
limited to a few samples, which is not sufficient to carry out an
optimization process. Besides, the authors of [26,20] did not devel-
op an understanding of the kinematics of the geometrical defects
from the information gathered. The second approach aims to gen-
erate defects either numerically (with only limited knowledge of
the specificities of the structure being studied) or mechanically.
Node shaking, a feature which is available in most of the commer-
cial FE codes, was used in [27,20]. Another classical technique con-
sists in using the first modes of a linear buckling analysis to perturb
the ideal initial geometry. However, these first modes are not nec-
essarily suitable for describing all types of defects. In the case of
folded cores, it is important to take into account the out-of-
straightness of the folds, which is hard to describe using the buck-
ling modes of the cell walls. A very promising approach consists in
modeling the folding process itself in order to generate physically
 E. Baranger et al. / Composite Structures 93 (2011) 2504–2510
Fig. 6. The folding pattern with randomly positioned nodes.
Fig. 7. Observation of two folded edges.
consistent imperfections. This is the approach we are going to
develop.
The manufacturing process consists of three steps. The first step
corresponds to the embossing of the folding pattern onto a sheet of
paper. During this stage, the locations of the folds are marked using
a roller or a cutting device. The second step is the folding of the un-
cured sheet of pre-impregnated paper. The third step is the curing
of the folded core. Since the second step is very complex, only the
folding kinematics is considered. The defects are assumed to be
Fig. 8. The boundary conditions for the folding simulation.
2507
due to a misplacement of the folds arising either from an uncer-
tainty about a fold’s actual location (due to the heterogeneity of
the paper or the embossing process, see Fig. 5) or from kinematical
incompatibilities during the folding process. Theoretically, the
folding pattern is embossed in such a way that it leads to a compat-
ible kinematics during folding. However, folding is a continuous
process and the plate is not folded all at once as a whole. Therefore,
imperfections can occur and propagate while the core is being
processed.
We modeled the folding process using ABAQUS Implicit. A plane
sheet of uncured paper was meshed with plate finite elements. A
very rough estimation of the mechanical properties of the uncured
paper was used because the folding simulation involves mainly ri-
gid body motions and buckling mode shapes. Elastic behavior was
assumed. The geometrical imperfections were introduced into the
folding pattern as shown in Fig. 6.
Each vertex of the folding pattern was positioned randomly
near its nominal position. The embossing marks were modeled as
perfect hinges. As can be observed in Fig. 7, the cell walls con-
nected to a mark were straight and their thickness at the location
of the mark was quite small (20% of the thickness of the paper). The
uncertainty about the location of the marks was approximately
equal to the thickness of the paper. Therefore, the vertices were
moved randomly in that 0.2 mm range.
Three rows of cells were modeled in order to ensure represen-
tative boundary conditions for the inner row (Fig. 8). Five columns
of cells were considered in order to facilitate a comparison with the
experimental five-cell-wide coupons (Fig. 5).
A rather simplified simulation of the folding process was per-
formed: some nodes were constrained to remain in a lower plane
while others were raised by 20 mm (which corresponds to the
thickness of the core). The boundary conditions are shown in
Fig. 8. Only the final geometrical configuration from that simula-
tion was retained. The resulting stress or strain states were
ignored, which constitutes a simple model of the curing of the
core.
4. Numerical results and validation
This section presents two main results. The first result is a com-
parison between the numerically generated defects and the ob-
served defects. The second result is a comparison between the
numerical and experimental results for an out-of-plane compres-
sion test.
Following the strategy described previously, an imperfect CEL-
PACT Pattern 31 folded core [28] (density 113 kg/m3) was gener-
2508 E. Baranger et al. / Composite Structures 93 (2011) 2504–2510
Fig. 9. The numerically generated folded core.
ated. Fig. 9 shows the resulting geometry. Only the inner row of
cells (the dark gray row of cells in Fig. 8) was taken into account
for the defects. One can first note that the configuration of the
top edges is very similar to the top view of a core of Fig. 5. Buckling
of the cell walls at the free edges and similar deviations from the
nominal pattern can be observed.
A core sample was also scanned at IFB Stuttgart using a laser
probe, which enabled us to compare the out-of-straightness defect
of the folded edges generated by our numerical process with the
core’s scan. Using CATIA-V5, the folded edges were reconstructed
from the scan data as follows [18] (Fig. 10):
 Surface association: for each cell wall, a 6th-order multivariate
polynomial surface was associated with the scanned points.
 Prolongation of the associated surfaces: neighboring associated
surfaces were prolonged to intersect with each other. This pro-
longation of the surfaces was assumed to verify a curvature con-
tinuity condition (Fig. 11), which corresponds to the continuity
of the bending moment.
 Definition of the folds: the calculated intersections of the pro-
longed surfaces defined what we will call from here on the
‘‘actual’’ folded edges. These edges were then discretized for
representation purposes.
Fig. 10. Reconstruction of a folded edge.
Note that the definition of an actual folded edge is not straight-
forward. The geometry of a folded edge may depend on the way
the associated surfaces are prolonged.
For the numerical generation of the geometry of the imperfect
core, the extraction of the generated folded edges is trivial because
their definition is explicit. Fig. 12 shows the evolution of the (nor-
mal) distance between a generated imperfect folded edge and a
straight line joining the two ends of the curved edge being consid-
ered. Fig. 13 shows the corresponding evolution for an actual
folded edge. This operation was repeated for several folded edges
in the core. The configurations of the generated folded edges agree
very well with the configurations of their actual counterparts. The
defects are very similar in terms of both shape and magnitude. One
can observe that most of the defects are asymmetrical. This agrees
well with the creation of kinked edges which was observed during
a compression test.
Then, we performed simulations of out-of-plane compression
tests on an imperfect CELPACT Pattern 31 core with three magni-
tudes of defects using ABAQUS Implicit. The results were com-
pared with experimental results. The core was bonded to glass/
epoxy skins. The experimental setup included a hinge in order
to minimize the imperfections in the loading. For further details,
see [7]. The global force–displacement curve up to the peak load
is shown in Fig. 14. One can see that with that type of defect the
stiffness is correctly described up to 25 kN. Without defects (the
dashed black line), the initial stiffness is vastly overestimated.
The properties of the paper were identified a priori based on pa-
per coupons as in [7].
Fig. 11. Prolongation of the surfaces.
 E. Baranger et al. / Composite Structures 93 (2011) 2504–2510 2509

0.16

0.14

Amplitude of the defect (mm)

0.12

0.1

0.08

0.06

0.04

0.02

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Distance (mm)

Fig. 12. Evolution of the magnitude of the out-of-straightness defect along different folded edges: extraction from numerical simulations.

0.16

0.14
Amplitude of the defect (mm)

0.12

0.1

0.08

0.06

0.04

0.02

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Distance (mm)

Fig. 13. Evolution of the magnitude of the out-of-straightness defect along different folded edges: reconstruction from experimental data.

4
x 10

3.5

2.5
Force (N)

1.5 Experimental data

Model, no defect
1 Model, +−0.25 mm defect
Model, +− 0.125 mm defect
0.5 Model, +−0.19 mm defect

0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
Displacement (mm)

Fig. 14. The force as a function of the displacement for an out-of-plane compression test.

5. Conclusion contrary to standard procedures such as node shaking or perturba-

This paper focuses on the influence of the modeling of the geo-
metrical defects in folded cores on the mechanical behavior of a
sandwich plate. Since numerical optimization is the ultimate goal,
the defects must be generated numerically rather than directly
based on the observation of actual defects. The proposed method,
tion based on the first buckling modes, relies on the modeling of
the folding process in order to generate physical defects. The mod-
eling of the out-of-straightness defect of the edges is crucial
because it plays a major role in the initial stiffness for out-of-plane
compression. Comparisons with experimental data are presented.
The shapes and magnitudes of the out-of-straightness defects of
2510 E. Baranger et al. / Composite Structures 93 (2011) 2504–2510

the folded edges agree well with the experiments. When the de-
fects are taken into account, the prediction of the initial stiffness
of the core in compression is correct, contrary to the case without
physically correct geometrical defects. In the case of honeycomb
cores, the manufacturing process does not lead to such defects
and, therefore, classical buckling models are sufficient [13].
Acknowledgment
This work was carried out in the framework of the EU-project
CELPACT, whose financial support is gratefully acknowledged. S.
Fischer, IFB Stuttgart, provided the laser scan of the core.
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